Quinoa Tabbouleh and Pork Taquitos

 So these two dishes don't so much go together (though they potentially could, you crazy cats) but the iPad wouldn't let me post a new post, so I threw my Failure Taquitos right into this post. I call them failure taquitos because I followed a recipe that used cream cheese inside the taquitos, against my better judgement.

Because I'm a precocious little scamp, I heavily modified the recipe anyway and changed the filling, which was originally boiled, shredded chicken, cheese, cream cheese, and a chipotle ranch filling inside some tortillas, with the same chipotle ranch on the side. Gross. What? Why is it on the inside, if you're gonna slather it on the outside as well. And there's not like a single veggie in that bitch. And we know how much I hate that. Go on, eat some fucking bacon, but at least throw in some spinach and tomatoes or something. What are we, Americans? Anyway, I choose to do a quick/easy marinade for the meat, saute it with some veggies, but then I still used the goddamn cream cheese. Oh well, at least I tried it. And it was good, not great. The cream cheese was gross, and so I tried it again after I got over my initial disappointment failure, but without the cream cheese, and it was soooooooo good.

Here's one of my very favorite, super healthy recipes before we move onto the failure taquitos. 

Quinoa Tabbouleh
1 cup tomatoes, chopped
1 cup cucumber, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 green onions, sliced
1/3 cup parsley, chopped
1/4 cup mint, chopped 
1 jalapeño, minced
3 TB olive oil
1 TB lemon or lime juice
Salt and pepper, pinch and a dash


1 cup quinoa
2 cups water

1. Boil the water. Once it boils, stir in the quinoa, reduce to low heat and cover for 12-15 minutes. Remove lid a fluff.

2. Meanwhile, chop up your veggies, and mix them all together. Whist together the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper.

3. Let quinoa cool for about 20 minutes, and then toss everything together.



Failure Pork Taquitos:
Serves 4

1/2 lb pork tenderloin, or thinly pounded chops
1/2 cup beer
1/2 lime, juiced
3TB olive oil, or sunflower oil

1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper

4 green onion, sliced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 - 1/2 cup peppers,  hot or sweet, depending on your heat tolerance, minced
1/4 cup tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped up (divided, save half for dipping sauce)
2 small chipotle peppers in adobo
1 cup shredded cheese, any old Mexican blend is great
1TB chili powder
1/4 tsp salt

6 inch flour or corn tortillas (I used flour)

1. Mix beer, lime juice, and olive oil and marinate pork for 30 minutes - 2 hours.

2. You could perhaps use this opportunity to chop up your veggies, and compile them on some plates or something to be prepared for later.

3. Heat a large cast iron skillet with 2 TB olive oil. Sauté green onion, garlic, and peppers on medium heat until softened, about 3-5 minutes. Add tomatoes in the last minute or so of cooking. Move to outer edges of the pan, to make enough room to cook the pork. If your pan isn't big enough to do this, just remove the veggies to a bowl, and cook the pork separately.

4. Mix the spices together: paprika, cumin, salt, sugar, and black pepper. Drain the pork, coat with spice mixture, and pan fry for about 3 minutes on each side at medium/medium high. Cut into very think strips, or 1/4 inch cubes, your choice. Both are nice.

5.  Stir together the meat and veggies with the cilantro, chipotle peppers, cheese, chili powder and salt. Use about 2 TB filling to each tortilla, roll up and place seam side down onto a greased baking pan.

6. Cook at 425 for 15- 20 minutes, or until browned and warmed through.

You can also freeze these, but you'll need to up the cooking  time by ten minutes or so.

Trinidadian Hot Sauce

 One of my all time favorite cookbooks is Get Saucy!, a veritable sauce-Bible of much awesomeness. As an example of its greatness this Trinidadian hot sauce is the bees' knees! I really only made a few small changes, not enough to call it my own. It is an excellent way to use up all those habaneros you grew with stars in your eyes only to watch them rotting on the vine come fall as your mouth burns with from your attempts to include them in everyday cooking.

Trinidadian Hot Sauce!

6 habaneros
1 m carrot, cut up
7-10 cloves of garlic
4 scallions, chopped
1/4 cup fresh flat parsley leaves
2 T fresh thyme leaves
1 T oregano or cilantro
1/3 cup white vinegar
3-4 TB prepared yellow mustard
1T fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp salt

Throw all this into blender and mix it up. 

Stuffed Zucchini (maybe also peppers)

For some reason, in the late summer, I get this overwhelming urge to make stuffed EVERYTHING. Stuffed chicken, stuffed pork, stuffed peppers, and even empanadas! But I've never tried stuffed zucchini for some insane reason. So one balmy night of irrepressible desire, I decided it was high time. And it was fucking great.

Stuffed Zucchini? And peppers?

1 minced shallot
1/4 cup chopped onion
4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup chopped tomato
1 minced poblano pepper
1 cup minced zucchini
salt and pepper, paprika, coriander
1/2 cup Quark cheese for filling (or a lighter goat cheese, chevre or even cream cheese perhaps)
White aged cheddar (or parmesan) grated on top 

A few sprigs of fresh parsley, thyme, and oregano


1. Rinse and halve the zucchini. Preheat oven to 400. Scoop out and chop the zucchini innards, add to already chopped zucchini.

2. Sauté up the onions, shallot, and garlic on medium for a few minutes, till onions soften up. Add poblano and zucchini, cook a few minutes more, add tomato, cook one more minute, stirring vigorously and season with spices, about 1/2 tsp each.

3. Let cool, stir in Quark cheese, then spoon into the zucchini shells and arrange on a cookie sheet. Cook for about 20 minutes, then turn the broiler on and broil until topping is browned.

I also used the very abundant amount of filling this made to stuff some poblano peppers, which was delicious, you could use bell peppers, or even tomatoes. Yum.

My Fucking Delicious Chimichurri Sauce

This is a really delicious, herb based sauce that is a great compliment to otherwise plain fish, chicken, or even steak. 

Chimichurri!

3/4 cup parsley
1/4 cup pregano
2 TB thyme
1 TB basil
1 TB chives or scallions
1/3 c olive oil
1 TB lime juice, or white wine vinegar
4-6 cloves garlic (depending on size, I used 2 giant ones!)
4 cherry tomatoes
1 small hot pepper of your choice (opt.)
 1/2 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Blend in food processor, blender or magic bullet. Eat. Orgasm.

Quinoa salad

Garden harvest, healthy eating quinoa salad!

2 cups cooked Quinoa
2 medium Tomatoes, fresh, diced
4 cloves Garlic
1/4 cup diced poblano, other hot peppers
2/3 cup coarsest chopped purslane, or spinach
2-4 sliced scallions
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
Handful fresh basil
1 tsp Spanish paprika
Opt. 1/4 cup feta cheese

Dressing:
3 TB Olive oil
2 tsp balsamic vinegar or lemon
salt and pepper

Mix everything together. Stir in dressing

Alternately, sauté poblano, scallions, and garlic. Add purslane last.



In this crappy picture, the quinoa clump on the left is uncooked veggies, and the clump to the right is the one in which I sauteed the veggies before adding them.

Ugh, quinoa always photographs horribly, but OMG was this delicious.